Otoyomegatari - Vol. 7 Ch. 41 - The Ceremony

[MangaDex]

 

[Pachka84]

Spoiler

"I'm so happy, honey! Tomorrow I'm getting married to a woman from nearby!"
"You... Euh, what?"
Next chapter:
"Honey, can my wife move in with us? Her husband died and she has nobody to provide for her."
"Seriously... What?"

Mod Note: Please use spoiler tags when talking about chapter-specific or future events.

 

[Ironclad]

It took me a long time, but I did find one source on this vow of sisterhood stuff. It's all very uniquely Persian. From 500-1500 AD Persia had as much homosexuality as Ancient Greece more or less with references to mentorship and camaraderie, but around the early 20th century it became increasingly criticized from both Western progressives and religious fundamentalists as bourgeoisie and degenerate. Janet Afary wrote extensively about it in her 2009 book Sexual Politics in Modern Iran. I got the impression there was much more msm and nambla rather than hot lesbians though.

 

[Cyro11]

Conveniently collapsed husband

 

[Freeloader14]

@Cryo11 we are of the same mind.

 

[SotiCoto]

Ugh... getting filthy islam all over their precious yuri-marriage. How degenerate.

And I see Anus is kinda stupid given she bragged about her yuri-marriage to her husband... but at least he too is retarded enough not to understand what it means. I guess you can't expect too much of a bunch of desert-dwellers. Heat-stroke probably causes cumulative brain-damage over generations.

... On another note, all this talk of sister-wives would mean something very different if they were Zoroastrian.

 

[SuperOniichan]

@Ironclad Until the homosexual-obsessed "Western researchers" no one even thought that it should be considered homosexual. It's like dozens of androgynous Eastern traditions that Western "science" now calls transsexual.

 

[Ironclad]

@SuperOniichan Are you saying there are no homosexuals in Iran? Also I was citing an Iranian researcher with degrees both in Iran and the West so they should be fairly holistic.

 

[SuperOniichan]

@Ironclad Do you understand the difference between "they did not consider this tradition homosexual" and "there was no homosexuality in their culture"? Secondly, Janet Afary lives in the US and has a whole bingo of modern cultural historians like feminism, gender studies and interest in LGBTQ.
Second, many cultures had a homoerotic connotation in same-sex traditions. For example, Japanese literary tradition even now views ideal friendship as a platonic romance, which you can see in this arc too. But this, firstly, was not their only meaning (even sudo was not always sexual), and secondly, we are talking about a Muslim country of the 19th century. This is far from semi-pagan Persia. Even the Bible has references to this, like the "Our friendship is stronger than the love for women" lines, but you can also find in the same Testament mention of how entire cities were destroyed due to the desire of people to do BL with a couple of bishonens.

I could refer to the fact that my mother's ancestors come from the Middle East, but that is not the point. The question is that Semitic and generally Middle Eastern culture is very different from Western culture, so using such labels for it is as foolish as trying to establish the sexuality of Class S or Homer's characters.

 

[Ironclad]

@SuperOniichan I think we're getting into semantics. They're certainly very different cultures with drastically different understandings of personal space and signs of affection. Like I said in the first place, it probably wasn't hardcore carpetmunching and I compared it to traditions of mentorship and platonic love that you can find in many cultures. Did mentioning Ancient Greece make you think of Al Sharpton? I was mostly joking when I mentioned msm and nambla, but I was trying to illustrate that very little is written regarding women's social interactions.

 

[SuperOniichan]

@Ironclad If you are interested in female queerness in the context of ancient culture, then it was mainly understood as idealized asexuality and eternal virginity, since female sexuality and romance were strongly associated with men. Man is a symbol of libido, woman is pure and immaculate object, do the math. Not surprisingly, even now, many view lesbian sex as "horny pussies trying to satisfy themselves in anticipation of a man". At the same time, at least Chinese aristocratic harems were widely known for their situational homosexuality, this is even parodied in several works about medieval China. And if we started talking about the Chinese, then they had a rather similar tradition of "sister marriages", I can look for source if you want.

 

[Ironclad]

@SuperOniichan Certainly figures like Artemis represent eternal virginity, but dichotomies of men and women typically depict women as chaotic and passionate and men as orderly and reasoned. The only context where this is reversed is probably war. That view on anticipation makes me think of Freud's theory of "penis envy" and the "lesbian bed death" phenomenon. You've brought up harems and situational homosexuality, and that fits this setting fairly closely though you were probably talking about the eunuchs more so than neglected concubines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assemblywomen

 

[SuperOniichan]

@Ironclad There is a slightly different context here, the division of people into smart men and passionate women rather repeats a sexist understanding of gender differences in intelligence than sexuality. This is also a very ancient prejudice, however.
Well, the reasons can be different, but overall yes, harems have historically been a great source of female situational homosexuality. But if we talk about this arc directly, then there really was quite a lot of references to Class S. But is more about typical stories about problematic marriages than any kind of situational homosexuality. I think you've seen this premise a bunch of times - a girl falls in love with her husband's sister or brother's wife and they end up tragically cheating on him behind his back. It made a certain sense in its day, but now it's just become a classic cliché. I don't know if this was deliberate on Mori-sensei's side, but at least it gives a similar vibe.

 

[villko05]

Why did this manga turn into a story about homosexuals?
I thought it was about shota and his hot wife... I was happy to find a finished manga with a good central story, but all it is, 20 chapters of the main story, and the rest of what it feels "fillers"/"irrelevant side stories".
Downer

 

[ViEmlleSzDias]

@villko05
Hm.... this manga isn't finished.

 

[shazeliqa]

as a Muslim woman idk how to feel about this lol never expected the story to turn out this way.. anyway they’re minor characters so hopefully I don’t have to read more of this since I’m more interested in the main plot anyway.
and at first I thought this particular arc took place in Afghanistan, by their attires and specific burqa styles. but someone pointed out that this is in Iran, which makes sense why their vow is that of the Shias. Iran is predominantly Shias, while Afghanistan is predominantly Sunni Muslims.

 

[SuperOniichan]

Why did this manga turn into a story about homosexuals?
I thought it was about shota and his hot wife... I was happy to find a finished manga with a good central story, but all it is, 20 chapters of the main story, and the rest of what it feels "fillers"/"irrelevant side stories".
Downer

Because this manga didn't turn into a "story about homosexuals". It’s just that the theme of one of the arcs is one of the marriage traditions in the Middle East. Actually, like the themes of other arcs. Such forms of union are quite normal for Asia and until recently no one even thought that they were somehow “homosexual”.